In food factories, drink factories etc., cleaning of productive facilities and apparatuses is conducted before changing the type of product or after operation, wherein parts such as pipes and tanks hardly removable for cleaning are subjected to CIP cleaning (stationary cleaning). This CIP is an abbreviation of cleaning in place, which is a method of cleaning facilities without dismantling them.
CIP cleaning is used widely in food factories, drink factories, etc. Particularly in drink factories, it is important that cleaning is conducted sufficiently such that at the time of changing the type of product etc., previously charged materials do not remain and flavors compounded with the previously charged materials are not mixed in materials to be charged.
In food factories etc., therefore, CIP cleaning is carried out for a sufficient time, but flavors are liable to remain in packing (sealing portion) such as tube connections particularly in production lines, so significant labor is required to remove the flavors sufficiently.
As the speed of production is increased and the type of drink is increased in recent years, the frequency of changing the type of product is increased, and a loss in time in the CIP process causes a significant reduction in productivity.
In CIP cleaning, alkali cleaning and/or acid cleaning has been conducted suitably depending on dirt in the inside of pipes in productive facilities and production apparatuses, and there are cases where oxidizing agents such as hypochlorite, isocyanurate, percarbonate and perborate are used to increase the efficiency of cleaning. In spite of use of such oxidizing agents, sufficient deodorizing effects can still not be obtained, and depending on working conditions, apparatuses may be damaged.
Under these circumstances, there are proposed techniques of further improving the efficiency of cleaning and the efficiency of removing flavors in CIP cleaning. For example, techniques of deodorizing and cleaning using nonionic surfactants are disclosed in, for example, JP-A 2003-49193.
JP-A 2001-49296, JP-A 2001-207190 and JP-A 2002-105489 disclose, respectively, use of nonionic surfactants and amphoteric surfactants in detergents in beer brewing facilities.
On one hand, JP-A 2002-97494 discloses techniques of cleaning a chemical plant with aromatic hydrocarbons, and JP-A 10-183191 discloses techniques of cleaning with a solvent for industrial apparatuses, which employs an organic solvent.